Dungeon Roll

The Game

Dungeon Roll is fantasy dungeon crawling designed as a dice game. You play three rounds, in which everyone takes a turn to explore and plunder a dungeon. After three rounds, you compare points to see who wins. 

White dice are the player dice. They represent the party of adventurers you explore the dungeon with. Black dice are the dungeon dice. They represent the monsters and also the treasures you encounter. Most faces of a white die are different adventurer types, like fighter, cleric and thief. They have different abilities. They are used to defeat black dice. Treasures and potions on the black dice need to be "defeated" too. You need to spend white dice to open treasures and to quaff potions. However you do get something in return. 

Exploring a dungeon means fighting through it level by level until you are defeated or decide to retreat. There are 10 levels, and every level is harder than the previous one. You only roll one black die for the first level, two for the second level, three for the third, and so on. Every time you clear one level, you have to decide whether to retreat and keep the score you have so far, or to attempt the next level and hope to score more. In case you fail to fight through a level you are attempting, you won't score points for the whole adventure. The next level will have more black dice. You will gradually use up your white dice. Some abilities let you restore some of them. At the moment I can't imagine how you can get to Level 10. By around Level 5 it already feels like the max. Maybe I need to learn to play better. 

The different types of adventurer have different abilities. By default they can always defeat one monster. However they specialise in certain monster types. E.g. a single cleric can defeat any number of skeletons. So if you roll many skeletons, and you have one cleric, you're in luck! 

When you use white dice to open treasure chests, you get all sorts of treasures and equipment. A thief can open any number of chests. Some items behave like a specific adventurer type. You keep them for future use. Some items have point values. Potions you quaff let you restore white dice. One of the black die faces is the dragon. Rolling a dragon means you are starting to disturb it. Dragon die faces are set aside. Once you reach three dragons, you wake the dragon and must fight it in order to complete the current level. Defeating the dragon requires three different adventurer types, so it's not easy. If you manage it, you score points and gain a treasure. 

Scrolls, which appear on white dice, let you reroll. Sometimes this can be a life saver. Sometimes it makes things worse. 

Every player gets a character card. You have one ongoing ability, and one once-per-excursion ability. When you reach a certain experience level (which is also your victory points), your character upgrades and both your abilities change. 

The Play

This is mostly a solo game. Only one player is actually playing at any one time. The others spectate. The only player interaction is thinking about well your opponents are doing and deciding how much risk you want to take in order to catch up to them or stay ahead of them. Rolling dice is exciting. There's an element of surprise and uncertainty. The game is tactical in nature. You do your best with what you roll. Overall it's pretty straight-forward. Still, the dungeon crawling theme comes out pretty well. You do feel like you're fighting your way through monsters and traps. The fact that you need to roll dice makes the experience one of risk-taking. 

The character card being tilted 90 degrees means you've used your single-use power.

The Thoughts

Dungeon Roll is a light and brisk dice game, and it's flavourful as a fantasy adventure game despite the simplicity.